Alice in Chains were one of the big four grunge bands, alongside fellow Seattle titans Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana (who were actually from Aberdeen, but no one knows where Aberdeen is). Of the four, only Pearl Jam is still a going concern. Sure, there's a band out there called Alice in Chains, and three of the four members were members of Alice in Chains, and they play Alice in Chains material, but they are not the band that wrote the album I'm talking about today, Dirt, and that's probably a good thing for the people in the current band calling itself Alice in Chains.

Alice in Chains, the original band, died with Layne Staley in 2002. Layne died of suicide, just as much as Kurt Cobain did. Layne's was just slower; Kurt went out with a bang, but Layne withered away and disappeared into a syringe. He didn't have a Courtney Love around for assholes to blame his death on, nor a fanatical media following trying to turn his funeral into a fucking reality show. By 2002, grunge was over as a trend, so he passed sadly and relatively quietly, eventually being found two weeks after he ODed.

My major memory of this was an interview I saw very shortly, maybe a few weeks or so, before Layne's death was discovered. Jerry, mainly being interviewed about his impending solo album, but also talking about having spoken with Layne recently and how he was doing better. I remember Jerry just looked... haunted. Bleak. I can't find video of this interview, I think it was on MuchMusic but might have been MTV, or VH1, or... I might be "remembering" something I never saw. I don't know. When we heard about Layne, it hit me like a truck. I wouldn't be surprised if it bent my brain. But I'll never forget the way Jerry looked, even if he never actually did.

Alice in Chains looms large to me. They were one of my three favorite bands for a very long time, alongside Tool and Strapping Young Lad. I had all the albums released before 2002 and still do. I have both Nothing Safe and Music Bank. I still listen to Unplugged. I still listen to all of it.

But most of all, I never stopped listening to Dirt.

I don't remember when I "found" Alice in Chains. I knew they existed but I was 13 when Kurt died. I was 12 when Dirt was released. By the time I was an older teenager, out on my own and really getting into music, grunge was already gone and done, but what I did have was MuchMusic's "Loud", their metal/punk/industrial/anything loud show.

It would have been 1998 maybe? 1999? I lived in a one-room sublet that had room for a bed, a TV and a computer. I was watching "Loud", because I did every chance I could, and they ran a video from this band - I think it was "Would?" but it might have been "Rooster" - and my world changed again.

I know this is a long, rambling introduction that's basically nothing to do with the album, but I really don't know what to say about it. I'd escaped a bad situation. I was angry, I was hurt. I was trying to get on my feet with not much but a job that didn't really pay enough, even for 1999. Layne and Jerry screamed at me over a gap of seven years. I won't say the roar of the guitars and Mike and Sean's thunder saved my life, but I won't say they didn't either.

Don't let anyone tell you Dirt is just an album about drugs. It's the sound of anger, and pain, and hurt, and knowing that things aren't okay, they aren't going to be okay, but maybe it doesn't have to be like that forever. It's the sound of a world that should have ended when Andrew Wood died, and didn't, and now the sound of a world that should have ended again when Layne died, and still didn't. Maybe we have a chance to pick up the pieces. And it's not okay, but knowing that it isn't okay is okay.

I think it's gonna rain when I die. We miss you, Layne.